this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2025
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Firstly, I take great suspicion in the honesty of someone taking right wing talking points at face value in the very thread proving right-wing dishonesty about the criticism of DEI.
Secondly, you imply that the DEI(+accessibility) aspects of hiring inherently uses representation as its primary hiring criterion overriding competence and qualifications, which is simply not true. You're also, in my opinion erroneously, subscribing to the notion that there are "absolute best" applicants rather than "best fits".
Thirdly, while we could have an honest discussion about what role demographic representation in hiring should play in what industry/field, I'd argue if you are distributing shared public resources, those resources should benefit the public evenly and equitable hiring is an important aspect.
Fourthly, your example of blind hiring is a very good example as to why it's not a fix: it doesn't take into consideration "invisible labor" women are subjected to. Etc.
I'm not, there's not some sort of generically absolute best applicant, there's only ever best fit for the given position. Unless you are implying that being a specific demographic or demographics makes one a better fit inherently?
Explicitly not being able to make a decision based on race/sex/etc because you do not know the race/sex/etc of the applicant and thus it cannot be a factor is itself not a fix for racist, sexist, etc hiring practices because it does not allow you to give members of certain races or sexes additional consideration because of their demographic membership? And proof of this is that not knowing candidate's race/sex/etc doesn't necessarily increase the likelihood that you will pick women, non-white, etc candidates?
This actually demonstrates the point though - it's not about removing discrimination in the hiring process, it's about targeting a specific mix and coming up with whatever policies help you approach that desired mix without doing anything explicitly illegal (like outright saying only to hire [or not hire] a certain race/sex/etc for a given position). It's the difference between saying "we want to hire a black person for this job, if possible" and heavily emphasizing that your institution is a historically black college and the "need to fit in with the college community" when hiring for this position. I'm not saying but I'm saying and all.
Again, you imply that some of the potentially valid criticism of poorly executed DEI hiring practices are universal, pervasive and absolute, whereas in reality that is your projection only. There are no "inherent" fits, there are dynamic groups, that benefit from different perspectives.
I seriously have no idea what you are talking about here. You ask two circular questions, then self-high-five to make the claim the second time that historically black colleges have "racist hiring practices bordering on illegal". I personally know a lot of non-black professors/faculty from HBCUs, so again, your implied universality of your prejudices aren't supported by my personal experiences. Personally, I work in clinical research that usually demands 60-80h workweeks, and based on the research outputs stalling I can tell when people became parents. Women take a much bigger hit by this, and I can draw the conclusion that men are better qualified, but it's just untrue. Additionally, and it's something I've seen in medical resident recruitment before, certain programs push very hard to recruit white, US graduates, even if they might be less qualified.
But we can go on and on about this, if people's criticism came from an honest/valid place, they wouldn't put up with trump blaming air traffic incidents on DEI without any supporting data, because it's called prejudice. Etc.